To ride with Doc Standley in 1892 or... whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of the outrageous fortunes of the Mendocino Coast Health Care District Board of Directors in the here and now?
Some simple results from the MCHCD special board meeting of March 16: the board affirmed Best Best & Krieger (BB&K) as their legal counsel. In another action, on a split 3-2 vote, the board affirmed BB&K as counsel to assist the district with public record requests.
The 3-2 split is indicative of much consternation on this publicly elected board. In December, the current board chair was elected on a different 3-2 split vote. There are good people on this board, some capable of admirable achievements. Yet they find themselves in crisis upon crisis, mostly of their own creation. After a February 8th special meeting, the board chair opened her computer to apparently find someone deleting zoom recordings of recent meetings. Was the culprit one of the board members, someone with access to a board member's password, a malicious outsider, or what?
When I returned from a nine month hiatus to observe this group in August 2021, there were already about a dozen regular and special board meetings devoid of minutes, the ultimate record of what transpired. Minutes were created for August, September, and October. However, once again, minutes for meetings dating back into 2021 have not been produced as yet in 2022. There are apparent disagreements between the board secretary and the past chair and another board member as to who should have compiled those August, September, and October minutes. The district's bylaws appear to name the board secretary as the officer responsible for meeting minutes, yet the secretary's name is not on those August, September, and October minutes.
The matter of the February 8th zoom recording disappearance has seemingly been passed on to the county district attorney's office for investigation. One as yet unconfirmed report has a board member asking an IT professional from Adventist Health to perform a forensic computer search into the matter. That action is alleged to have commenced February 9th and may or may not have involved a local attorney as well.
Then we have another potential zoom recording mystery. Let me start it from my own point of view. In the first days of the new year, the district released onto its website five copies of zoom recordings. One turned out to be nothing more than a call between two board members, an apparent consultant, and an insurance company representative. I sent a text to a board member pointing out this wasn't a board meeting. About a week later it was taken off the website. At more or less the same time I noted that the recording of a November 2021 meeting contained approximately forty minutes of the board's closed session. A text message and again, relatively quickly, the closed session material vanished from the website. The website was left with November and December recordings from both 2020 and 2021. I thought, great, the district has recordings from late 2020, surely they will soon post some of the early 2021 meeting recordings.
I waited until anticipation turned to skepticism then grew tinged with suspicion. Two months went by, no additional recordings on the website. I filed a public records request for copies of the zoom recordings from January through July 9, 2021 (inclusive). In that time frame there were eleven board meetings, six regular meetings on the final Thursday of the month and five special meetings in February, April, May, June, and on July 9th. Minutes only exist for the regular meetings of January, February, April (though those have not been approved by the board yet), and May. Minutes for March are alluded to in the regular April meeting agenda, but those March minutes do not actually appear. There are no minutes for the five special board meetings in the first half of 2021, hence the importance of the zoom recordings covering that period.
What happened to those minutes is another point of conjecture. One theory is that the zoom account in use at the time discarded or deleted old meeting recordings to make way for new ones, but there is no certainty. At the March 16th meeting, the past chair said she was doing her best to retrieve these recordings. We wish her good hunting.
Keep in mind that it was suggested to multiple MCHCD Board members last summer that they could borrow the services of the City of Fort Bragg's IT specialist to set up an electronic platform that would have included a website and zoom recordings for MCHCD. Though City officials were willing to go out of their way on this matter as well as in helping to promote a broader avenue of staff recruitment, no one from the MCHCD Board took them up on the offers of assistance. It has also been reported that a City official warned at least one MCHCD leader about the use of personal zoom accounts rather than a separate account for district use only. That apparently went unheeded as well.
The MCHCD zoom recordings may be a key to unraveling another thread in a skein of yarn the cats have gotten into and dragged every which way. It is more or less certain that at a closed session special meeting on June 10, 2021, the MCHCD Board interviewed two candidates to potentially fill an appointment as district legal counsel. They apparently chose a Fort Bragg attorney. There appears to be a discrepancy as to whether the vote to appoint this attorney was 5-0 or 3-0. There may be disagreement attached to the latter alleged vote as well.
That disagreement stems from the possibility that the chosen attorney was recommended or introduced to the board by one of their own who had employed the attorney for personal business purposes. There is nothing wrong with that. However, in reference to the possible 3-0 vote it is uncertain whether the board member who brought the attorney forward recused themself from the entire process or merely abstained from the vote. A recusal occurs (or should occur) when an elected official has or appears to have a potential conflict of interest. Sometimes that can be purely geographic, as in living within a certain distance from a planned change of zoning or newly proposed development. Employing someone for personal legal work would appear to call for a board member to recuse themselves from the entire selection process of the district legal counsel. This may not have happened at the June 10, 2021 MCHCD attorney selection and appointment. One report indicates that the vote was taken then two board members either abstained or recused themselves after the fact. The second of these was reportedly someone who had ties to the attorney through a family business. One thing is certain. when a public session agenda item was held at an August 26, 2021 MCHCD Board meeting on whether or not to approve the contract with the local attorney alluded to above, all five board members participated in the entire agenda item process, with no one announcing a need to recuse. The same two board members apparently in question in the June 10th legal counsel selection process were the last two board members to vote on the contract. They both abstained, without revealing any connections with the attorney to the public (the word disingenuous comes to mind). The contract was turned down by a 2-1 vote.
The unraveling does not stop there. Some board members have employed that same attorney since the August 26th denial of a contract as district legal counsel. Two have more or less openly admitted to multiple employments. How many others have used his services since August 26th is at least somewhat murky at this point. The board member who allegedly introduced or recommended the attorney to the board in the spring of 2021 has not indicated one way or the other about employing this attorney after the August 26th negative vote on the attorney's contract. Whether or not it is ethical to employ an attorney in what might be special counsel (piece by piece) work after voting down that attorney's long term contract is a matter above my legal pay grade. It is up to readers to cast their own judgments on the plethora of questionable actions alluded to earlier.
Almost forgot: there is an accusation that in February a current board leader wrote checks to the above referenced attorney totaling $19,000 - $20,000. One of the checks appears to be for more than $14,000. A further allegation is that this action was taken without full board approval. Of course, you guessed it, there is a retort that approval was not needed.
On March 17th I added to my public records request the zoom recordings for the MCHCD Board meetings of August 12 and August 26, 2021. I have also requested from the MCHCD Board the billings from and payments made to the attorney whose contract for district legal counsel was voted down in public session on August 26th. Further, I have requested all the invoices and records of payments to and from MCHCD and Best Best & Krieger (BB&K) from July 1, 2020 through to St. Patrick's Day, 2022.
I have received the initial response regarding the January through July 2021 zoom recordings. It, of course, acknowledges receipt of the request and states, “the District has determined that it has records that may respond to your request. District staff members are in the process of searching for, gathering, and reviewing potentially responsive records. We estimate that copies of responsive, non-exempt records may be available on a rolling basis beginning March 28, 2022.”
In many ways I am hoping that going through all that material won't even be necessary. However, judging by the performances at the latest meeting, it seems that some board members believe they can control the narrative of events. From this vantage point there exists too much obfuscation where simple transparency would best serve the situation.
As for 1892, we will have to hold off on the entire story. The only possible object lesson for MCHCD Board members: Mendocino County Sheriff Jeremiah M. “Doc” Standley entered that year a legendary lawman in his own time. After events unforeseen as the calendar turned to January 1892, he exited the year unemployed, a loser at the ballot box, never again to hold elected office.
To be or not to be... that is indeed the question for the Mendocino Coast Health Care District Board... to suffer the slings and arrows...
The District is little more than a placeholder after Adventist Health took over day to day operations of the coast hospital in July 2020. Amid the rumors and accusations detailed above, there is a reason why no names have been attached in this article. For the most part the folks on the MCHCD Board of Directors are good people, worthy of respect. I don't want to see their names and reputations bashed in print any more than is absolutely necessary. They have made errors of omission and commission. They have borne the burden of running an entire district apparatus devoid of almost any support staff for nearly two years. They deserve a way out.
Dissolution of the district is that way out, The coastal population will still have its hospital. Adventist Health can have a freer hand in running that hospital. The tax money used for the hospital will be governed by the same deal already in place through the affiliation agreement. Clinging to some idea that a dysfunctional district is better than Dissolution is as misguided as the efforts of some coastal citizens two – three years ago, who maintained an independent hospital about to plunge into a door closing bankruptcy was better than affiliation with Adventist Health.
“There but for fortune go you or go I, you or I...” — Phil Ochs.
Nearly full disclosure: In July 2020, I came within a blink of an eye from saying yes to an influential someone asking me to run for a seat on the MCHCD Board (a run that would have been essentially unopposed). The presence of a bevy of quail provided enough distraction time for me to think of several reasons why I shouldn't (yes, how can I work with one of the board members was on that list, though of least importance). Some of the reasons were more personal and won't go into print.
At this point the current board isn't offering anything constructive for the public beyond a sideshow of hopeless self-destruction. They have made themselves hapless, easy targets for criticism from the public in general and writers like me. I would rather remain on friendly terms with each of them. I hope they turn away from pretentious attempts to cover up mistakes that might momentarily tarnish their reputations. I also hope they realize their legacies will be enhanced if they recognize the need to author a resolution of Dissolution.
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